


THE PROXIES!

by psylocke



Category: Avengers (Comics), Avengers Academy, Runaways (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), Young Avengers
Genre: Multi, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 01:09:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2209968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psylocke/pseuds/psylocke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ramshackle group of teenage heroes are captured by a mysterious villain. Featuring Monica Rambeau as their babysitter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know.

**CHAPTER ONE — ALL TIED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO**

_(a.k.a. monica rambeau babysits a bunch of babies)_

 

Monica Rambeau was the first to wake up. That was nothing new for her — ever since she was a kid, she’d been surviving on six cups of coffee a day. If it wasn’t the midnight bathroom run she made that got her, it was that incessant, insatiable craving for caffeine. Apparently, it worked even after getting knocked out by a something-or-other who presumably thought that she was still leading the Avengers or something.

She wasn’t, but she would never let you forget that she had once. Like, ten years ago.

It was awesome.

Still, what bothered her wasn’t the fact that she’d woken up first, or that she’d woken up at all. It was waking up and knowing that, despite her eyes being well and truly opened, they were still drawing in no light. Nothing but darkness surrounded her. Under normal circumstances, that might have been a good thing — a couple extra hours of sleep, mom — but not when you were tied up to a chair in what felt, smelt, and sounded like a cave. Don’t ask how she knew that. The story would bore you to tears.

Struggling against the confines of the rope, Monica knew that if she just jimmied her hands free, then she’d be able to blast her way out of whatever it was that nabbed her in the first place. Must have been a powerful foe to take her down, totally unable to recall why or how or when. But now that she was prepared, especially now that she was angry, then she wouldn’t have a problem.

The knots were proving too tight for her to break free of, which only served to make her madder (would that she be a Hulk!), so going against all practicality and common sense, she made to lash out, risk hurting herself in the process. She could feel the build-up of energy, that sweet sensation running through her veins as it built and built and built, then finally——

KA-POW.

Nope. No ka-pow. Not even a ka-blooey. Monica might have settled for a sputter, or a fizzle, or a snap-crackle-pop. She didn’t like the silence. Silence was dangerous and deadly. She did the only thing she felt she could: kept releasing energy until it was totally spent. It was going somewhere, because she could feel it leaving her body in volts, but it wasn’t discharging like it normally did. She wanted to swear and kick her feet, but her feet were tied up to the chair and she didn’t want to set a bad example for the viewing public.

Slowly but surely, through no effort of her own, she finally discovered where — exactly — that energy was going. Behind her, she realized as she turned her head, was a massive light-bulb. The cords around her wrists weren’t rope. Rather, they were grounding her to the bulb, and each discharge of energy gave it a drop more power. The harder she concentrated, the brighter it got. It was taxing just to get it to dimmer-switch material, any gap in her focus would cause it to start burning out immediately.

When it was bright enough to see but a few feet in front of her, Monica started to assess the situation. Definitely a cave. The brown-and-slate flooring was too tacky to be anywhere indoors. She was fully clothed in civvies, which meant somebody was up to no-good. There was a tunnel a good 45 degrees to her right, stretching further than she could see in the din. Then, to her left…

“Oh, sweet merciful crap,” she mumbled.

To her left were seven chairs identical to the one she herself sat in. Each one came equipped with an action figure of their own: fully automated, totally realistic, versions of some of the kiddie superheroes she’d come to know and… well, know, over her tenure as a vigilante.

Whatever the hell was going on, she wanted absolutely no part in it.

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Being the last to arrive to anything wasn’t Tommy Shepherd’s style. Not at all. Even when he was trying to be a too-cool-for-school teenage heartthrob to millions of undying fangirls, he always got to his engagements on time. Came with the territory, really. Being unable to walk anywhere without getting pangs of restless leg syndrome (which is totally a real thing), or to think slower than a chihuahua barked, meant that being prompt was just as late as being late. He needed to be a step ahead.

That was why, when he opened his eyes, the world looked absolutely stock-still.

He tried to bow his head, to get a look at his hands, and that simplest of movements took nearly three whole seconds. That might have felt slow even for the average person, but it was barely moving at all in the registries of his mind. ‘Is this how Billy sees the world?’ he asked himself without a bit of irony. If this was the world in regular motion, he wanted to find the fast-forward button again.

The hell was going on here?

Voices echoed in his ears like adults in Charlie Brown. Whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp, whomp-whomp. Every so often, he would get a hint of what was being said, formulating a whole word in his brain — trapped, cave, missionary position. Wait, what?

Tommy snapped his head to the side. ‘Snapped’ wasn’t the right word, not in this case. More like a gentle bend. Six other people were bound like he was, some of them he recognized, others he knew by reputation alone. Others, still, he wouldn’t have given a second glance any other day — any day he could have looked away more quickly.

“Ti—mmy?” As quick as he could, he turned his head in the other direction. When it finally caught up with his cognitive function, he saw Monica Rambeau, who suddenly seemed way too old to be going to these kinds of parties. He knew her from Avengers functions, from the photo memory wall, from the one time the two of them teamed up to save a cat being chased by a snake in Central Park. Y’know, hero stuff.

He tried to form words, to let her know he was conscious, but they sounded garbled in his mouth. “Whalewatching—bologna—ecuador?”

She nodded, like frames from a movie being played impossibly slow. He saw every still. Every sudden quirk in her face. “????—can’t—charge—????????????—velociraptor?”

His face went totally blank, trying to rectify what was being said when his ears absolutely refused to make sense of it all. He shook his head, felt a rattling above. A helmet? It fit like a glove, so snugly over top of his head, that he hadn’t realized it was there until now. Was that slowing him down? Was it… his eyes narrowed. Only one person wore helmets in this day and age, what with medical care being so cheap and affordable.

Magneto.

Struggling against his confinement, Tommy tried to shout the words out, warning them of who their captor was. “Mag—neato! Neato! Neato!”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Unfortunately, his guess wasn’t even close.

Everybody else had figured that out already — or, rather, the thought hadn’t even crossed their mind. The helmet connection was a loose one at best, because as far as anybody could tell, it was more of a bucket-thing than a Magneto-style-bucket-thing (which would have been a lot more stylish and a lot less slate-coloured). For Brandon Sharpe and Anya Corazon, who had captured them didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that they’d been captured.

“—that’s the last time I spent the night at your place.”

“Nobody asked you to show up at my web at three in the morning, Sharpe.”

“Stop calling it ‘your web’. It’s a treehouse. You’re eighteen. Come on.” If either one of them could break free, they might have started actually fighting each other. Until that fateful moment, Monica Rambeau was forced to play child care supervisor. Kids, on the whole, weren’t a problem. But super-powered teenaged kids with superiority complexes? That was not her department. Not by a long-shot, no siree bob.

“If you both don’t shut up in the next thirteen seconds, so help me, I’m going to make this light bulb explode.” A quiet peep could be heard at the end of the line, too far for Monica to see in full clarity now that he fatigue was setting in. But the threat appeared to work, the two Avengers Academics were quieted down. “And, Timmy, stop babbling. We can all hear you.” Sort of. “What’s he even saying? Ham burrito? Kid’s off his rocker.”

To Tommy’s left, seated between him and Brandon Sharpe, was a timid-looking girl with oranged-tinted skin, tattoos on her face, and hair the colour of fire. Alani Ryan. “—I can’t phase,” she said, panic-stricken. She had chosen that exact moment to speak. “Something’s keeping me from…”

“I would suggest you not try any more of that,” said a very-much disembodied voice in the darkness. “Those gloves on your hands? Magically enchanted to sever you at the wrists if you attempt to escape. And you, boy?” He glanced to Brandon, then. “Each electric discharge you make is only feeding into the charger above you.” Monica hadn’t seen that. “If it gets too high, it’ll all come right back down on your head. Tell me, are you immune to electric shock?”

The room was stock-still.

And then suddenly Tommy started talking again. “Hey!Heyheyhey!Icanseeagain,Icanmoveandgrooveand—MAGNETO! SHOW YOURSELF, GRANDFATHER!”

She might have face palmed if they weren’t in total danger. And if she weren’t tethered to the chair.

“I’m not Magneto, you fool!” Tommy immediate was quieted down, babbling intelligibly once again. Clearly, he’d struck a nerve with the… whoever it was keeping them hostage. “Your faves could never! I repeat, NEVER! Achieve such a feat. Eight of the world’s greatest, brightest, strongest—”

If Uatu the Watcher was blind, then this guy wasn’t even trying.

“So you pick us?” Anya asked. “No offense to anybody here who thinks they’re the best, but I’m not even the best Spider-Stock-Character. And Brandon, here, he can’t even make a toaster work on a good day.”

“You’re so dead.”

Their villain cut them off. “Oh really, Spider-Woman? Saviour of the human race? Prisoner of Queen Veranke?” Judging by her face, Anya was both flattered and eternally confused. “And your boy-toy there, Storm! Thundered, lightning-bearer, force of nature!”

It took a lot to make a kid like Brandon Sharpe shut up, but that just about did it.

“And Shadowcat!” Alani’s face read ‘me?’ It was all Monica could do to keep the light going. “And Quicksilver. Captain Marvel. The Hulk. Doctor Strange. And, the prize of my collection — THOR! Wielder of Mjolnir! Now that I’ve you all in my grasps, I’ll harness your powers to take over the entire planet!”

And then, true to form, he began a maniacal laughter.

Like, ‘muahaha’s’ and all.

It was going to be a long, long day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know.

**CHAPTER TWO — STARS ARE BLIND**

_(a.k.a. mag-neato-completeo-yippee!)_

 

Monica Rambeau has just been told three very, very key pieces of information.

One: She was captured by a clearly trying-too-hard supervillain. Who sounded Minnesotan.

Two: She was alongside seven other heroes who had been called names that were, most assuredly, not their own codename. So that meant he was blind, confused, or a few kernels short of a bag of popcorn.

Three: She was called Captain Marvel. Now there’s a name she didn’t hear often enough anymore.

She didn’t know yet what to do with that information, but she intended to make good use of it.

Soon.

Maybe.

If only she could untie those infernal knots.

Damn you, girl scouts.

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Throughout the mad supervillain’s spieling moment, Nico Minoru remained absolutely silent. The others might have looked confused, and protested, and tried to tell him that, no, they weren’t Shadowcat or the Hulk or Thor or whoever they thought they were. That seemed like a bad decision in her mind. If he realized they weren’t who he thought they were, that wouldn’t make them freed. It’d make them dead.

If there was one thing Nico liked, it was being alive.

She waited until his maniacal laughter died down, giving her enough time to figure out who all was there. At the far end of the line was Monica Rambeau, a.k.a. Pulsar or Spectrum or Photon or Captain Marvel or WhateverNameWeNeedCopyrightedSTAT. Then came Thomas Shepherd, a.k.a Speed of the Young Avengers and occasional nuisance. To his right was Alani Ryan, a.k.a. Loa of various team affiliations, most recently the Avengers Academy, where she enrolled alongside the next two in line: Brandon Sharpe (Striker) and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl). Then came her. Nico Minoru. No need for a fancy title, but she’d been called Sister Grimm during simpler times. On her left was Victor Borkowski, a.k.a. Anole. One of Xavier’s whelps and looking helpless and confused. Despite his bulk and his struggle, he seemed unable to break free of his chains.

Then, last in line, was a girl no older than eighteen whom she failed to recognize.

And that worried her.

“We need a plan,” Monica said flatly, trying to speak over the arguing wannabe-Avengers. “This guy’s got our powers working against us. We can’t do anything without hurting ourselves. I’m not even sure Timmy’s still with us.”

Tommy’s head bobbed back and forth as he talked about Kraft mac’n’cheese and the plot of Breaking Bad that dragged on longer than the first three seasons had.

The trouble with coming up with a plan, of course, was that nobody had one. So it was a lot of dead air, a lot of confusion, until somebody finally spoke. It was Nico, much to her own confusion. “—He thinks I’m Strange.”

Brandon couldn’t help but quip, “We all think you’re strange, Runaway.”

If looks could kill. “No. I mean it. He thinks I’m Doctor Strange. Which means… he might have me warded against casting spells… with my hands?” Everybody seemed to be confused. “I use a staff. The Staff of One. I need to—I need to bleed, and then it’ll conjure itself, and then—”

“Then you can get us the hell out of here,” Victor said. First thing he’d spoken all day.

All eyes were then on Monica, as if she’d suddenly been elected to lead them. Or, instead, as if she were going to be the only one to complain about what few options they had. Adults. Who needs ‘em? “Okay.” She relented finally. “But how are you gonna do it? None of us can move.”

Nico scowled, glancing around the room. Inspiration. Anything. “Blow up the light bulb,” she said. “You’re gonna need to blow up the giant light bulb.”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Collateral damage was one of those things that was part of being a superhero. You always needed to make sure there was as little as possible, but it was unavoidable. Mitigating those costs and risks played a big part in their line of work — luckily for Jennifer Walters, she was the only person who seemed to understand the numbers game. Made a killing off of it, too.

Monica had not had to make one of those ‘greater good decisions’ in a long time. Years. Especially not one that involved the well being of a group of kids between her and her intended trajectory. She could blow up the light bulb she’d been attached to, the one and only thing giving them light in the little dank cave they were trapped in, but Nico wouldn’t be the only one getting scraped up.

But they were all heroes, not just her. Sometimes it was difficult to forget that.

“Hold on tight, kids,” she said, and despite just how tuckered-out she was, she started charging up every ounce of energy in her body. Ever trickle of kinetic energy surrounding her, every molecule of heat and pressure and static.

Finally, finally, finally, she got her ka-boom!

Even a couple ka-blooey’s in for good measure.

The glass shrapnel went in all directions, catching her in a few places and resulting in a couple muffled ‘ouchies’ from down the line. From there, though, everything happened quickly. True to her word, Nico Minoru started sprouting an ungodly staff from her abdomen — a sight none of them would be unseeing anytime soon — and, despite her hands still being strapped to her sides, began the process of freeing them.

“WIRE CUTTERS,” she called out, and the strain on Monica’s wrists and ankles loosened. Her connection to the remnants of the bulb severed, and she stood up. Everybody stood up, except for poor Tommy who seemed to be dragged a good two, three minutes behind the rest of them.

“Nice work, Nico,” Anya said, clapping her on the shoulder.

“It’s not over yet,” Monica said. She’d been freed from her power-prison, and judging by the blue electricity shooting out of Brandon’s eyes, he was ready to kill. But Alani was still in the phase-proof gloves, and Tommy’s helmet was still connected. “We still need to get out of here.”

“I don’t want to lose my hands,” Alani whined. Couldn’t blame her, either. That was not a fun thing.

Victor, his lopsided body — one buff and muscular, the other wiry and young — approached the group from the far end. “He said you couldn’t phase out of them,” he pointed out, taking Alani’s hands in his own. “Nothing about just… taking ‘em off.”

The girl let out a squeal as he yanked the gloves off her hands, all of them expecting bad news. But everything was still in tact. She was fine. And she could finally breathe that sigh of relief. “Thanks, Vic.”

“Hey,” he answered with a small smile. “Anytime.”

Brandon was clearly moved by the display, but hid it well. “What are we gonna do about daydream over there?” He gestured to Tommy, still sitting. But he seemed to have noticed his tethers were free.

After a brief pause, Alani nodded her head and turned towards him. “I can take care of that.”

Vic pulled his face into a half-frown. “Try not to touch his head,” he said, possibly joking.

Her finger phased delicately through the helmet, just a fraction of an inch from her nail, and promptly pulled it out. The metal contraption dissolved into a hundred pieces, but seemed to leave Tommy in tact. At least, they thought so. He continued to sit there, no longer babbling or moving, simply staring blankly ahead for a good minute.

Nobody moved as they waited to see what was going on.

Then, all of a sudden, he flashed a grin. “Guess who’s back, baby? This guy!” He stood up and jogged his way around the room. “I’m all caught up, too — jeez, do you guys talk slow or what?” He finally pulled to a halt in front of Monica, glancing around at his new team. Because it had already been decided, by him, that they would be a team and not just a rag-tag group of prisoners. “I don’t know about you guys, but I am so pumped to take down a bad guy together. I’ve wanted to team-up with the Runaways again since the Secret Invasion! Yeah!”

Now that he was back, Monica was kind of hoping to find an off switch. He just kept going.

“I think he went upstairs. I couldn’t see him, but the laugh got quieter over time and he went thatta way, where we could see, down that tunnel. I think it’s best if we all go together, as a group, like buddies. Super hero team up. Everybody’s gonna be so jealous of me. I even had Anole on my Team-Up Bingo card. I think I’ve almost gotten all the G’s. Billy (free space), Anole, Northstar, and—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Victor warned, but he had a grin tugging at his lip.

“By the way,” Tommy finally concluded when he needed to catch his breath. “Who’s that?”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Vic Borkowski was struggling to do the math in his head, and even using his fingers wasn’t helping any. This was his fourth time trying to recall two or three things at once, and even with everyone’s help, they were getting no closer to solving the mystery.

“Okay,” he said, holding up one digit. “He called you Storm, and you Spider-Woman. ‘Lani is clearly Shadowcat, on account of being cute, and Tommy is Quicksilver because they’re identical. Nico, we’ve established, is strange. Ms. Rambeau is Captain Marvel, in a nod back to the distant past.” The comment was met with a glare, which he grinned through. “And I’m probably the Hulk, because, let’s face it, I’m big, blond, and gangrenous. Which makes her…”

He rounded on to the one member of the group who stood away from the others, the one who didn’t belong, the one who looked on the verge of tears from the confusion and trauma of it all. She was eighteen, maybe nineteen, cropped brown hair and a dark, tanned skin tone.

“Thor?” Monica questioned.

“She doesn’t look like Thor,” Anya said, scrunching up her nose.

“Well, isn’t Thor a woman now? Maybe she dyed her hair,” Tommy commented.

Brandon shook his head. “No, idiot, Thor isn’t a woman now. A woman now goes by Thor. She could be anyone. Even her.”

The woman seemed to hold a bit of resentment that she was being spoken about without her being included in the conversation. Monica stepped forward, arguably the least threatening of the group, and offered her a bit of a smile. “I’m Monica Rambeau. You—uh—are you a superhero? Local affiliate, maybe? Sponsored by NBC?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got no idea why I’m here,” she confessed. “My name is Lucia Medina. I was working on my dad’s car, in the garage, one minute… then next, I’m here and I’m being called Thor.”

Monica narrowed her eyes. “So you’ve never, ever held up a hammer imbued with the power of a Norse God?”

“Well—I mean—I was using this.”

Strapped to the belt she wore, behind her back, was a large motorized hammer. “I’ve got bad wrists, so I use it to—” She pressed the button, and the top joint on the hammer began moving back and forth, hammer a ghost nail into the air.

Before she could finish, Tommy was laughing and pulling out his phone. “This is amazing. I need to get a picture.” He darted next to her, phone in his hands, and took a quick selfie of the two of them — Tommy grinned, Lucia looking absolutely confused as to what was happening. Before she could blink, he was back at Brandon’s side, showing him the candid. “—Hey, for a tunnel, this thing has pretty kick-ass reception. I’ve got, like, three bars down here.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This stopped being funny like 4500 words ago.

**CHAPTER THREE — BOYS ARE STUPID**

_(a.k.a. young avengers without the authority)_

 

Everybody knows that Monica Rambeau terrorized the Avengers under the moniker of Captain Marvel, but did you know that Tommy Shepherd is his uncle, Quicksilver? And that Nico Minoru of the Runaways is a pretty stellar substitute for Doctor Stephen Strange? You probably could have guessed that if you squint, and maybe in the right light and with a few costume changes, Anya Corazon, Brandon Sharpe, and Alani Ryan are passable alternatives to Spider-Woman, Storm, and Shadowcat, respectively? Or that as long as you don’t ask him to lift an entire planet, Victor Borkowski and the Hulk are practically twinning?

What about local nobody Lucia Medina? Bet you didn’t know that she was actually Thor.

The MIGHTY Thor.

Yeah, she thought it was pretty cool, too.

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

This really, really, really wasn’t cool. Like, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, she would brand this decidedly ‘uncool’ and probably try not to even look at it in the cafeteria. See, back at school, Lucia Medina was pretty much the epitome of popularity. She knew what was and wasn’t cool. She was cool. Aviators? Not cool. Leonardo DiCaprio? Still cool.

Superheroes? Not cool.

Now, she wasn’t the vapid beauty queen that people wanted to make her out to be. She had substance. She was an athlete, a mechanic, top of her class. That didn’t stop her from thinking this whole situation was something that only happened in bad dreams. Tied up against her will with a bunch of ragamuffin kids who wore spandex in their free time?

At least she had cell service.

“I’m calling the cops,” she said.

A resounding ‘no’ followed.

“Cops are trouble,” Brandon Sharpe explained.

“They’re going to get hurt,” Anya Corazon said.

“None of them are cute,” Victor Borkowski sighed. Only to get punched in the shoulder by Alani Ryan. The two of them shared a laugh. Lucia definitely definitely enjoy that they all knew each other. That made her the outcast. The weirdo. The one who wasn’t powerful and strong and different. It was odd, looking at them through the lens like that. At school, the kids who were into superheroes were the ones you didn’t talk to. They took the term ‘obsessed’ to a new level.

Now here she was being called Thor because she held a hammer one night.

Monica Rambeau did her best to quell the voices, but holding together a group of pent-up teenagers was a difficult task, even for the well-prepared. She was anything but. “We need to get moving,” she said. “Let the Avengers deal with Mole Man or whoever it is that rounded us up. My priority is to get you kids home before I’m not allowed to babysit you all again.”

Oh, what a relief it would be.

“But moooom.” Thomas Shepherd seemed to know her best, they’d definitely spoken before. For the rest of them, it was like a class reunion with a couple of strangers dropping in. But those two spoke familiarly.

“No, Timmy. We’re not instigating a fight.” The words ‘unless we have to’ seemed to float in the air despite her refusing to speak them. Monica’s hands made into fists, which then started to glow bright enough to light the path down the tunnel.

She stayed at the front of the group, while Lucia drifted toward the back. Nico Minoru remained next to her, keeping a steady gaze from the corner of her eyes. “—Sorry you got wrapped up in this,” she said quietly, offering a nod of solidarity.

“Please,” she answered, trying to sound braver than she felt. “It’s an honour.”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

While everybody else kept their feet on solid ground, Anya crawled the roof. She handed — threw — her shoes at Brandon and used her fingers and toes to keep her webbed to the ceiling, listening intently to the vibrations, using them to mark their path when they reached the foremost fork in the road. Despite a bit of argument from Tommy, who desperately wanted to split up and turn the whole thing into a movie, Monica turned it down and insisted they keep together.

“Safety in numbers,” she said.

“Safety in cowardice,” he echoed back.

They’d been walking well over an hour before anybody thought to ask about food. Or sore feet. Or something to drink. She was genuinely surprised by that — she knew most of these people, knew they were the complaining type. Tommy was the only one actively complaining, mostly because he knew he could scope out forward tunnels without wasting so much time guessing and second-guessing, but Monica insisted. Refused to let him scamper off on his own.

But even though Monica could move fast, he could move faster. Maybe it was her enhanced reflexes, but Anya could have sworn there were blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em moments of him vanishing and returning back to them. And not-so-subtly influencing the direction they were going.

There came a point that she started to notice the quiet echoing in the cavern getting louder, starting to thrum through her body and rock her to the core. She waited a fair bit of time and distance before deciding to bring it up, not to the group at large, but to Tommy himself. She dropped down, graceful as a spider, and tapped him on the shoulder. “Where are you taking us?” she asked in low tones, fairly certain nobody else could hear them.

“Out,” was his only answer.

Anya cracked a smile. “I don’t believe you, speedster.”

“Call me Quicksilver. I’m taking over.”

She almost laughed. “Fine. Quicksilver. Where are you taking us?”

He shrugged his shoulders, taking a couple steps forward. “Where Monica won’t.”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

“Here’s the thing,” Brandon said. “I’m not trying to, like, cissexist or whatever, but I don’t look like Storm. Not at all. I couldn’t pull off that hair. Or those dresses.” Next to him, Alani nodded slowly. “So why’d he get us confused? Even if it is Mole Man, even if he can’t see anything, he must have… have a clue, right? Must have known what he was doing.”

He should have known better than to expect Tommy to not be listening. He doubled back, grinning and looking over his shoulder. “Desperation, maybe? Not speaking for myself, here, personally, but you guys are two-bit superheroes. Knockoffs.”

“Says one of the Young Avengers,” Brandon practically spat. “You guys don’t even have identities of your own, you’re all damn posers.”

The fist cracked his nose before he could react, but the electric discharge that came with it stopped any further provocation. Tommy flew back, colliding into Monica, which brought the whole group to a halt. She grabbed Tommy by the shoulder before he could retaliate, her grip like iron. “What in the ever-loving hell are you both doing?”

“He called us knock-offs,” Tommy said, practically spitting.

Monica rolled her eyes. “Everybody knows the Young Avengers are knock-offs, Timmy. It’s part of your eclectic charm.”

“We were filling a void!” he protested.

Victor grinned. “I’ll fill your void.”

Brandon quirked a brow. “What?”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Patience was not a virtue that Monica Rambeau possessed, even on the best of days. This was the opposite of that — she was tired, cranky, hungry, and starting to catch on to what Tommy was trying to pull. Frankly, she was just too annoyed to fight it now. She wanted to punch something. Maybe two somethings. A whole truck full of somethings.

The kids, too, were getting antsy. That was obvious from the fight. They were on edge: she knew from experience that nobody liked getting kidnapped. It was enough to spark in-fighting. Hostility. She’d half a mind to ask Nico to create a cage to keep the boys separated, but — as was often the case, she found, when emotions like that were at play — once the hits had been gotten in, both their prides took enough of a hit to keep them from going at each others’ throats.

It was becoming more and more apparent that they were lost, albeit in a fairly coordinated fashion. Anya seemed to be marking their trail, and the steepness of their path had her assume they were moving closer to the surface, but she had no idea how long it’d be until they reached it. Judging by Tommy’s cell service, they’d all been under less than a day, but who was to say how they’d gotten there so quick? For all they knew, they were up against a teleporter. His texts to Billy only served a little bit of purpose: they had a small team of people trying to locate them, but their auras were so weak that not even the most powerful trackers in the country could find them.

She realized, swallowing back her pride, that there was a good chance they wouldn’t make it out of there. Alive, at least.

Finally, it got to the point that she had them stop to rest, and Nico used one of her spells — EAT UP — to conjure some semblance of a meal. Bellies full, they curled against the walls of the cave, cold and damp and heavy, a small fire (equal parts Nico and Striker) to keep the heat in, and a shared unwillingness to fall asleep. They were exhausted, sure, but too on edge to even think about sleeping.

Which meant obligatory bonding moments around a campfire.

“—So there we were,” Brandon said, having clearly forgotten the early bout in favour of trying to be an adult. His arm wrapped around Anya, squeezing her close with a chuckle. “Me and Jeanne and Anya, surrounded by, of all things, A.I.M. Scientists. No idea what to do, so we…”

She interrupted. “I devised an ingenious plan…”

“Yeah, maybe for Scooby Doo—”

“Shut up! Jerk.” She, too, was laughing. The two of them getting along was a good sign. “We knew there was no way we’d get out if we didn’t blend in, so we knocked out three of the guards, put on their uniforms, and then—”

Brandon felt compelled to finish the thought. “We snuck into the A.I.M. break room, stole some doughnuts, collected our paycheques, and booked it the f—” He cast a sidelong glance to Monica, whose brow was furrowed. “The heck out of there.”

With a small smile of her own, Monica leaned back and turned away from the fire, down the deep tunnel down the far side of the cavern. The shadows flickered on the walls, casting an ominous glow. She couldn’t hear a sound but the crackle of kindling and the laughter of teenagers, but then—she could have sworn she saw something move. Eyes narrowing, trying to clear up the blurry vision, she slowly got to her feet and started walking down the cavern.

Everybody behind her was too preoccupied with the stories and the laughing to notice their chaperon walking away. All except for Lucia, who scrambled to her feet to see what the commotion was about. She’d barely made it twenty feet before she felt shadowy tendrils take hold of her arm. She let out a yelp, a cry for help, as before her, Monica was being dragged off into the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost done.

**CHAPTER FOUR — SAVE YOURSELF**

_(a.k.a. borrowed directly from the cthulu mythos)_

 

 

After heroically freeing herself from capture, Monica Rambeau hired an indie band to accompany her through the dark, mysterious caverns under what can only be described as a Taco Bell on speed. No, not Tommy Shepherd (though he has been described as a walking, talking Crunch Wrap Supreme).

He, along with bandmates Brandon Sharpe (lead asshole), Alani Ryan (lead adorable), Anya Corazon (lead contortionist), Victor Borkowski (lead innuendo), Nico Minoru (lead special effects whiz), and newcomer Lucia Medina (lead vocals), were too distracted talking about whether Spider-Man or the Human Torch looks better in skimpy underwear to notice that Monica went and got herself captured.

Again.

And that’s what you missed on Glee!

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Lucia Medina’s instinct was to scream, and then to fight. It might not have been the wise thing to do, but it was the only thing to do. The snakey-smokey creatures had already grabbed hold of Monica Rambeau, and she was being pulled into shadows. The things were corporeal, they had form and substance, and if she just… bent… at the right angle…

There.

The automatic hammer was in her grasp, and like her apparent counterpart, Thor the Mighty, she swung her arm out in a wide arc, hoping to connect with something. She struck, and the being holding her down quickly pulled away. She was halfway between where she previously stood and where Monica was when the rest of the group responded.

By ‘the rest’, she meant Tommy Shepherd, of course. The speedster appeared out of nowhere, throwing punches onto anything that could take a punch. Lucia barely had time to breathe before two bolts of lightning flew past, striking the air around her and leaving a chill down her spine. It was enough to free Monica, who was struggling to stay upright. Lucia caught her from falling, the added weight nearly buckling her knees.

“What the hell was that?” asked Brandon Sharpe, deliverer of the savior lightning.

“No idea,” Monica breathed, desperately trying to catch her breath. “But whatever it was — I want it dead.”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

They had a renewed purpose now. Before, Monica was determined to keep them out of any more trouble than they already were in. Now, though? Now she wanted to get even. Tommy was glad he could finally admit to having been leading them in circles, waiting until he could find an offshoot that would lead them to where he felt they needed to go.

“So you know where the exit is?” Nico Minoru questioned. She didn’t seem at all impressed by the admission, while nobody else really seemed to be overly concerned. The last thing she wanted was a fight. She wanted to go home. Wanted her bed. Wanted to read Molly a bedtime story.

“Yeah,” Tommy replied, taking long, careful strides to keep time with her own. “You go left, left, left, right, up, left, down, right, up, up, right, down, left, right—”

“Can you take me there or not?”

He looked about ready to nod, but his words worked against him. “No can do, boss.”

“And why not?” she asked, arms folding at her chest.

“Because!” he said simply. “This is a team-up. You can’t chicken out on a team-up.”

“… I’m kinda done with this whole superhero game, Tommy,” Nico admitted, which drew a couple looks from the group ahead of them. “I don’t know why I was grabbed, don’t know who this is — and, frankly, don’t want to know — I just want a burger. Maybe a shake.”

He flashed her a smile. “How about you and me grab a bite when we make it out of here?”

“Not on your life, Shepherd.”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

For Alani Ryan, the throes of death was the very last place she wanted to be, too, but she didn’t want to complain about it. She’d been an X-Man. It sort of came with the territory. Joining up with the Academy kids had been her attempt at normalizing her life a bit: going to school, going to parties, not going up against supervillains what felt like every single month.

“Is it always this… difficult?”

She turned, realizing Lucia was walking next to her. They were about the same height, same build, and judging by how things were going, Lani had a feeling the girl needed somebody to talk to who wouldn’t flirt with her non-stop. Luckily, all she had to contend with was Vic and Brandon, but — well, those were details not really important to the story. “It’s usually brighter,” she said with a crooked smile. “And usually somebody has the genius idea to bring actual food, not magically-scavenged food from the Dark Dimensions.”

“Hey—” Nico interrupted. “I did what I could.”

“Aaaand I appreciate it!” Alani said, turning her head as far as it would go to smile. “But the sooner we get out of here, the sooner I’m having Tommy run us to Dairy Queen. Because I’m hungry and would kill for a Blizzard.”

“Big talk for an X-Baby,” spoke Anya Corazon, dropping down from the ceiling and reminding everybody of her presence.

“Ex-X-Baby,” she corrected in turn. “And I don’t think those rules count when ice cream’s on the line.”

Ahead of the group, Monica Rambeau attempted to remain as serious as possible. That snafu she made earlier seriously endangered the whole group — it was stupid, senseless, and she wouldn’t forgive herself for it. Not anytime soon, at least. She’d failed in the attempt to get out of there, failed in her attempt at discipline, and now she was following the lead of a teenage speedster who was too caught up in his romance with superhero to realize that they were going in blind — ha, get it?— against a villain they’d never actually seen before.

She might as well have screamed off a mountain top, for all the good her protests had done her.

What was it the Avengers Handbook said? — Don’t encourage them. ‘Them’ specifically meaning the Young Avengers, which seemed counter-intuitive because now she was fairly certain they were full-fledged Avengers, by rights, and likely were invited to more general meetings than she was. The damn book needed to be updated. There was an entire section on how to handle Magneto when the X-Men were unavailable and three pages of ‘how to not ask Billy and Teddy if they’re still actually engaged or if they forgot about it, too’.

Thing was, though, that these kids didn’t need encouragement. They had all the gumption and willpower they needed, she wasn’t going to be able to stop them even if she threatened them with detention, nap time, and a confiscation of treats.

What they needed was Spider-Mom.

She’d get the job done.

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

“Stop.” Tommy said, immediately racing to the front of the group.

Anya felt it too, and she descended from the ceiling to join him, although at her own much more leisurely pace. “You feel that?” she asked, staring off into the distance.

“Nope,” he said, but his head was nodding. “Saw it, though. He’s just through there.”

Monica stepped forward, then, between the teens and the villain: wherever he was. “No funny business. No life-threatening moves. Be smart. Don’t get yourselves killed, I am not insured as your team leader and I am not dealing with She-Hulk tomorrow. Got it?”

A chorus of grumbled ‘yes ma’ams’ sounded through the caves.

“Good. Nico, make fire.”

The young girl was going to make a comment about having already used up a good seven hundred spells just for making fire, but settled on a sigh and a quick prick of her thumb on a hanging stalactite. “FIRE FIRE EVERYWHERE AND NOT A — SHUT UP TOMMY, YOU TRY COMING UP WITH SPELLS SOMETIME.”

Somehow, it worked.

The fire lit a bit more space, but Monica needed it to absorb some of the energy, feeling it course through her body and beg to be released through the tips of her fingers. She did it one better, using the full force of her palms to send a cascading bolt of light, energy, and electricity down the cavern. “Let’s go.”

She led the charge, but Tommy quickly overtook her. Brandon was running, eager to get his hands dirty, and Anya took long strides along the wall to follow suit. Nico nodded to Lucia, who brandished her miniature Mjolnir and nodded in response. Pretty soon, only Alani and Victor Borkowski remained, taking their sweet time.

“So, we just gonna swoop in and save the day?” he asked.

She grinned. “Naturally.”

“Good, ‘cuz I don’t feel like running.”

A thought suddenly emerged, and Lani’s face twisted into a wide smile. “Oh, hey, did you hear that David came out? Yeah, he’s bisexual, isn’t that great?”

“Huh,” Vic said, lips pursed. “No kidding. He seeing anyone?”

“Actually,” she said, pointing up the hall where she could make out the slightest blur of Tommy’s form. “I thought the two of them were going at it.”

Victor cracked his knuckles, head tilted to the side and brow arching. “That so?”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

The laboratory was suddenly flooded with powerful light, the shadowy tendrils becoming almost visible now, standing in stark contrast to the incandescence. Still, there was no sign of their villain, just the slippery arms trying to grab them. By now, they’d all realized that they were physical forms, and that they could fight their way through them.

But Tommy knew their guy was in here.

Somewhere.

While Brandon shot lightning bolts in every possible direction, he expertly avoided them — running, hopping, jumping — as he searched the room top to bottom. Monica and Nico were firing off their own blasts, which kept him on his toes, but when he was like this, he was untouchable. Gave Unus a run for his money.

Finally, he settled on a construct in the middle of the room, a cylindrical… thingy… that stretched the full height, shifting and moving in place. The pieces seemed to be trying to fit together, trying to build something, and he didn’t want to be around when it figured out that jigsaw. “Focus on this thing!” Tommy hollered, stopping just long enough for everybody to see where he stood.

That proved a costly mistake, as it was also enough time for the tendrils to take hold of him.

In a split-second, he was completely covered and he struggled to breathe.

Then, all at once, it felt like he was being ripped in two, soul being physically torn from his body.

Somewhere, in the distance, what felt like miles away, he heard Monica’s voice — “Kill it!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's like NEXTWAVE. Only not funny.

** CHAPTER FIVE — FACSIMILE **

_(a.k.a. insert obligatory photo of the team’s converse arranged like a star)_

 

 

Tommy Shepherd died a hero. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

He, along with former Runaway Nico Minoru, Avengers Academy losers Anya Corazon and Brandon Sharpe, X-Baby Victor Borkowski, can’t-decide-if-she’s-an-Avenger-or-an-X-Men Alani Ryan, and total popular girl Lucia Medina (no, she’s not a superhero — she’s clearly an author insert), were kidnapped by this mysterious being with shadow puppets and stuff, but it’s okay, because he thinks they’re A-List heroes. When, in actuality, they’re more like C-List.

Sorry, Kathy Griffin, they out-rank you.

Thing is, while they were trying to escape, Tommy stopped running really fast just long enough to get himself ripped to shreds by those same shadowy Lovecraftian monster things. And that made Monica Rambeau (also captured, not a teenager, not getting paid to babysit) really, really mad. So she gave the order to take the whole place down.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Nothing could cover up the sound of Thomas Shepherd being killed by those tenebrous arms.

Not even Journey.

They were enough to stop everybody in their tracks, stomachs sinking as they tried to block out the sound. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, they would be haunted by those noises until the day they died (or the next time they got blackout drunk). Even Monica Rambeau, who was supposed to be, like, the leader or something, was momentarily stalled.

It was that moment that Alani Ryan and Victor Borkowski entered the room, sped along by the sounds. They hadn’t seen it happen, hadn’t seen Tommy get swallowed whole, and despite their discomfort, it wasn’t something they could put a face to. A disembodied voice. A cry for help. And X-Men, believe it or not, are always willing to lend a hand.

“Vic,” Alani said, urgency in her voice. When she spotted Tommy, she saw only one possibly option. “Fastball?”

Now, Victor was no Colossus. He knew that. He wasn’t nearly that strong. But, still, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. An opportunity to use the most famous move in X-History. “I may not be the Hulk,” he said, his enlarged arm picking her up effortlessly, while the smaller one kept her in place. ‘But I am totally better than the Thing!”

Alani flew through the air at top speed, her stomach lurching and immediately regretting this decision. She was going to die, wasn’t she? This was it. It was all over.

Well, it might have been if she hadn’t snapped out of her angst at the very last second, making her body totally intangible just before she hit the center tower. As she phased through it, the thing began to crumble — and, with it, the tendrils all seemed to go limp and disappear. Tommy hit the ground, still conscious but clearly dazed.

His reaction times were quicker than most — and when he saw Alani falling, falling, falling, he started running, running, running.

He caught her just in time.

“David’s right,” she said. “You are a catch.”

Ensue collective groan from the audience.

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

With the eldritch horrors gone, and the central tower crumbling, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the room they stood in was not structurally secure. “It’s caving in,” Monica shouted, her voice carrying well over the shaking room.

“We need to move—” Tommy said, and immediately he and Alani were gone. Then Lucia Medina. Next, he grabbed Brandon Sharpe.

Each time he returned, the room seemed to be in worse repair. He was moving in the blink of an eye, but he needed to be going quicker than that. Somebody was liable to get hurt. He was shuffling them to the exit, into daylight, but he had no time to dwell on how quick he was moving.

Faster, faster, he needed to go faster.

Monica was the last person he grabbed, completely out of breath when he finally had the opportunity to stop. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the view, yet, but everybody else was already taking it in — the entrance to the cave stood near the top of a colossal peak, a mountain range stretching for miles. “Rockies,” Nico Minoru said without a hint of doubt. “I think we might be in Canada.”

“Must explain why nobody could pin-point our location,” Brandon said, totally bitter. “There’s no Internet up here.”

“I had a signal,” Tommy panted, trying to keep his breathing steady. “This isn’t Latveria. Canadians believe in free everything — health care, library books, WiFi…”

Monica wasn’t going to dignify that with a response.

Luckily, she didn’t have to — at that exact moment, there was a crack and a shift in the air. Out of nowhere, Billy Kaplan (a.k.a. WICCAN! of the Young Avengers, and twin brother to Tommy) teleported onto the scene. Accompanying him were a slew of Avengers proper — Captain Universe, Smasher, and an angry looking Spider-Woman.

“It’s about time, jerk,” Tommy scolded.

“Nice to see you, too,” Billy said with a sigh. “You were being scrambled — couldn’t pinpoint you, even with the tracker that Tony put on your phone.”

“He put a what on my what now—”

Monica stepped forward, nodding her head to the three Avengers and the Avengers auxiliary squad. “We took care of it,” she said. “The kids are all alright. Whoever it was that took us, he thought we were—”

“He thought I was you!” Anya Corazon called out, waving to Spider-Woman.

Jessica pretended not to notice.

“—but we took care of him,” Monica concluded.

A voice behind them echoed through the open mouth of the cave, loud and angry and irritable.

“OR DID YOU?!”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

For a good, long minute, everybody expected some maniacal supervillain to step through into the light, but nothing came. The voice kept echoing, down and down and down, and they heard every mile it journeyed, but not a single movement was made.

It finally got to the point that Monica couldn’t take it anymore, and she shot a burst of light energy down into the crevasse. It bounced off the walls, hopefully giving them show of what they were dealing with.

Still nothing, but the voice called out once more.

“—Do you not realize that this was my plan all along?!” he asked, depravity in his voice. “Did you really think that I would confuse you, lackluster heroes, for the real deal? True, bona fide Avengers?! How you mocked me, how you teased me, for being blind when, in truth… it was you who was blind to me all along!”

Anya pursed her lips and raised a brow.

“Not cool, man,” Brandon said.

“I didn’t need the names, I needed the powers! I knew that if I took you, nobody would miss you.” He paused for a long beat. “Nobody would even know you were gone. And I could suck you dry of your powers without anybody being any the wiser where I’d gotten them. But now? Now that you’ve been rescued, look what precious toys you’ve brought me… cosmic awareness, untold magics, the strength of the Shi’Ar empire!—whatever it is Spider-Woman can do!”

“Hey—” Jess interrupted, but was promptly cut off.

“This,” he shouted, “this is the best day ever!”

While everybody else stood in place, Tommy Shepherd took note of something. He moved slowly, for once in his life, slow as a snail. Slow enough to be utterly still while still moving.

“And now that I’ve got you all in my trap, I might as well make it… permanent.”

Suddenly as before, the tendrils all appeared out of thin air. Tommy chose that moment to disappear, while everybody else was snared in their grasp, unable to move. That unearthly, ungodly screaming commenced. All around him, the world was burning — his friends, his new team, they were dying. And he was running. Running to, fro, away, home, wherever his legs would take him.

Luckily, running was what he was good at.

Each time he zoomed past the chaos, he made sure to get a step closer to the mouth of the cave. Enough to see inside, enough to see what was going on. And then, when his hunch was finally confirmed, he nodded his head and stopped in mid-air. His foot fell to the ground, and a sickening — surprisingly loud — crunch accompanied the disappearance of the shadows, everybody’s continued freedoms.

The whole group stared at him, trying to figure out what had happened.

Tommy flashed a shit-eating grin and lifting up one foot, hopping forward as he tried to pull off his shoe. When he finally succeeded, he held the heel up and showed what he’d stepped on to anybody who cared. “Cybernetic ant, I think. Power of speech. Half-robot, half-ant, all evil. That’s why we couldn’t see him.”

There was a lot of embarrassment to be had.

“Captured by an ant,” Monica sighed. “That’s it. I quit. I’m getting a job at Target.”

“—Do you think it’s one of Pym’s?” Spider-Woman asked.

Anya pulled a face. “If it is… let’s not tell him, okay?”

“Deal, kid.”

Vic and Alani were having a laugh, and he clapped Brandon on the shoulder to get him to join in. “Hey,” Victor whispered, “did you hear Tommy’s dating Prodigy?”

“You’re kidding,” Brandon mumbled. “Does that mean we have to—”

“Yeah. We need to let him join the club.”

“Julie’s gonna be pissed.”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Meanwhile, Lucia was realizing just how out of place she really was. She stepped away from the laugh-and-cry-and-complain the rest of the group seemed to be having, standing on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the impressive sight below.

“Where do you live?” Nico asked, arms folded at her chest as she approached from behind. Celebrations like this were never really her style.

“L.A.,” she answered automatically.

Nico let out a low whistle. “That’s pretty far from here, huh?”

She nodded.

“—Actually, some friends and I… we run an operation out of L.A.,” Nico explained, finally glancing over. “So if you want, I could take you home.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“If,” Nico said quickly, “if you’re willing to give us a trial run.”

Lucia looked her way, brow furrowed. “I’m not a—”

“I know,” she answered with a grin, “but we’ve got a guy on our team, I think you’ll like him, if you show him that magic hammer of yours, he’ll go running scared. Besides, you did the only thing a hero needs to do: you ran headlong into danger to save a woman you knew barely two hours.”

After a pause, Lucia nodded. Nico pricked her finger.

“Welcome to the Runaways,” she said. “IDON’TTHINKWE’REINKANSASANYMORE.”

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Tommy Shepherd still had a stupid grin plastered on his face a half hour later. His legs swung over the edge of the mountain, waiting for the S.H.I.E.L.D. sweep of the facility to end. For the most part, he was being left alone — even by Billy, for whatever reason — until Monica finally approached him and sat next to him on the stoop.

“Good work back there, Timmy.”

“You too, Mona.”

“How’s Billy doing?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “He’s not talking to me. Don’t know why. He’s over there. Ask him yourself.”

“Maybe later.”

Another shrug. “You leaving?” he asked her, looking over.

“Yeah, they’re almost done. Apparently Cap wants to talk to me — that hasn’t happened in a couple years.”

Tommy laughed. “Careful, he might ground you.”

Monica hopped to her feet and stepped over the edge, powers holding her in place, suspended in the air. “I’d like to see him try. Take care, kiddo. I’ll see you at Christmas.”

He gave her a single wave before she sped off in the sky.

Not a minute later, he was joined by Brandon Sharpe, who occupied the same seat Monica had just been in. “If my nose is busted, I’m fining you,” he said. Maybe a joke. Maybe not. Hard to tell.

“I can finish the job, if you want.”

Brandon shook his head. “Don’t bother. Crooked noses are sexy, right?”

“Sure.”

There was a long silence hanging between them, until Brandon finally spoke again. “I’ve been meaning to ask — why does she called you Timmy?”

A smirk formed on his lips. “I got her for secret santa a couple years back, at the Avengers Christmas party. I was in a rush, so I signed her card last minute and I scribbled and it said ‘To Mona, From Timmy’.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“What can I say?” he mumbled. “It stuck.”

Another silence, this one not quite as long. Brandon shuffled to his feed, using Tommy as leverage to stand up, hand on his shoulder. “Hey. ‘Lani, Anya, Vic and I are going to get some food with your brother. Wanna tag along?”

“Appreciate it,” he said, “but I’m gonna stay here for a bit. Maybe next time.”

Brandon nodded to himself, muttering a goodbye, and then, once more, Tommy was alone.

But he couldn’t hide the smile. 


End file.
